Creativity is just connecting things..
Steve Jobs
I didn’t plan to do digital marketing. Digital Marketing happened to me. When I was struggling to start a business in the technology realm, I stumbled into this business.
I like to believe that I am a born programmer. When marketing industry initiated it’s digital transformation, I happened to be in the crossroads. In spite of the lack of experience in this industry, a few businesses trusted me with the job. After several failures and few successes, in 8 years I have decided to say something about digital marketing.
CONNECTING CUSTOMERS – organic growth
I had the fortune of working with great artists as customers. My customers taught me the way of artists. I was able to apply some of the processes by training as an engineer to the marketing they already knew. Our collaboration lead into great milestones in the film industry.
Ever since, I have made an effort to connect my customers with their customers in the most organic fashion. Technology was never used just because it is bleeding edge. Technology has been used to push the envelopes. True challenge always came from using the right technology for the customer.
CONNECTING artists WITH THE MASSES to create superstars – using content
While I was doing it, I didn’t quite appreciate the privilege I was handed out, I got an opportunity to manage social media handles of celebrities with millions following them. The trust my customers already had in me allowed me to manage the accounts quite independently. I was allowed to create content and promote them with absolute freedom.
Instant feedback from customers was new for film stars in 2012. They were not quite tech savvy during that time. My ability to understand algorithms gave me an advantage , I was able to anticipate how high engagement triggered disproportionate visibility for my customers. Developing high quality content was easy as competitors were not aware of the value of high quality content at that time.
One of my customers’ social media profile started breaking out. An actress was becoming a big star in the social media. She had no hits, people knew her as a television anchor and a child artist, yet her social media account had more following than Malayalam film superstars. People started becoming curious. Superstar fans became furious. This suddenly created a discussion which launched the actress into the orbits of real super stardom outside the digital world.
connecting money – paid advertisement
In 2012, Facebook advertising was normal in the United States. It’s Indian arm was struggling to make any money. Reason ? Organic traffic was cheap. One of my customers suggested to advertise in Facebook. We were able to promote the release of our film entirely through social media. Cutting costs on print and below the line saved a lot of money. To promote a film in 2019 similarly costed 15 times more. Total lack of demand for Facebook Ads helped.
For the first time, I started taking money seriously. We started focusing on RoI for every campaign. Planning, Measuring , Improving of RoI was integrated into every campaign we did since then.
Connecting technology with niche
Digital Marketing started getting accepted as a serious marketing tool. Service providers mushroomed everywhere. There was demand, it was easy to start a business with just a laptop, internet connection and a debit card. India started booming in digital marketing.
Virtually every service was getting digitized. Online directories and service aggregators became the leading marketing tools for demand generation. These companies started investing heavily, crowding the market place. It was not easy to differentiate. Who will pay to market their services when online directories were present? It was time to do better than the giants.
This was the time to innovate with various technologies , spread out into all digital mediums, search other social media, do online PR, digital publishing, and content creation at scale.
CONNECTING THE LOCAL SMALL BUSINESS
The big player had no time for the small player. The aggregation services provided leads, but leads were not exclusive. This meant that the high quality product/service always lost to the cheapest guy in the market. The price of services started falling steeply. Nobody was happy.
It was time to give targeted exclusive leads to small players. This phase was not at all profitable in hindsight. However, working with near 1000 customers gave me a better understanding of the subject. Customers came from various industries, locations and scales.
connecting with local artists
We humans are addicted to great stories. The only way for the local businesses to do any business was to sell them without much advertising. Doing it required good creatives that caught customer eyeballs the first time. They don’t have the luxury of pumping money for multiple impressions. We connected customers with creators, thus serving the interests of both the creator and consumer. Today, a large network of content creators help us tell stories
CONNECTING WITH SELF
You are not much different from the rest of humanity. Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses gives a lot of insights. Our constant efforts to learn the depth of human intuition helps us connect better with the rest of humanity.
When you know human psyche in depth, It helps you run campaigns which are sometimes counter intuitive. This is why we call our company INTUISYZ ( Intuitive Systems)
